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Kona's Grindmill takes the humble square
and transforms it into an implement of destruction.
The map is full of squares, being basically
square in shape, with a square outdoor plaza
in the middle, and four smaller square rooms
in each corner of the larger quadrangle.
Long, straight hallways connect each of
these outside rooms, while two staircases
and an elevator link the sunken plaza floor
with the elevated outside structures. Does
this sound boring? Trust me, it's not. The
author has added just enough irregularity
to keep the underlying geometric shapes
very interesting, indeed– each of
the outside rooms varies slightly from each
other, and a couple of corridors branch
off the main form and jut into the plaza.
The geometric pattern is further deviated
from with the addition of a lone room–
placed midway along one perimeter of the
map. A teleporter on one wall links to one
of the corner rooms on the far side of the
map, while an elevator sinking through the
floor links to the plaza via a jagged rock
tunnel. The byword for this map is connectivity–
and there is gobs and gobs of that. A well-interlinked
design is fairly easy to secure on map as
small and symmetrical map as this, but the
author wasn't one to rely on that characteristic
alone. It seems that every room offers some
exit or view onto the plaza floor; no matter
where you go on this map a way to cut directly
across the board through the plaza is only
mere steps away. A simple design but an
elegant one– excellent. (A)
Gothic is a word that has become much maligned
in the Q3 lexicon. This style of architecture
and level design relies upon pointed arches,
rib vaulting, and flying buttresses, along
with moody lighting, gloomy stonework, and
a smidgeon of Victorian influence to invoke
a atmosphere that is oppressive, mysterious,
and desolate. Unfortunately, the total overuse
of the Id stock texture set with those same
characteristics has doomed the style to
unpopularity in this game. Every so often,
however, you get a custom map that comes
along and does gothic just right, and reminds
you why gothic in Quake 1 was just so damn
cool. This is that map. The screenshots
speak for themselves– mixing equal
parts dreary stonework, rusted metal, and
spooky white and green lighting, this map
just oozes with personality. Although there's
nary an arch to be found, what there is
that is gothic can be accredited to Rorshach's
superlative Jackboot textures, which keeps
the gothic gloom and doom, while also adding
a touch of oppressive industrialism. The
plaza floor is coated with cracked and dry
soil, while the elevator tunnel seems to
have been hacked out of the living rock.
In a nice throwback to its gothic Q1 forebears,
the teleporters have the same dead grey
static pattern seen there. Against the dark
and grimy background of this map, only the
clear blue night sky overhead and ivory
white moon stand out– adding a nice
bit of color contrast. Superlative. (A)
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Gameplay is FAST. I mean not just speedy,
more than swift– this map flies, especially
with 3 or more players. There's no delay
between the booting of the game and the
onset of swift and savage hostilities–
when my playtesting team loaded this one
up, the mad rush to be the first to snag
the biggest, baddest pieces of iron was
tantamount to a herd of stampeding water
buffalo. This "run fast and die faster"
style stayed constant until the very last
frag. One of the things that makes this
map so fast is the connectivity built into
the main atrium; it's amazing how many entrances
to that room there really are. If you're
on the plaza floor an extra degree of paranoia
is warranted, as turning your back for just
a second will induce all manner of baddies
to spring up out of entrances you didn't
even know were there. Additionally, no corner
of the board is more than a few feet of
having some sort of field of fire into the
plaza and over whichever fool happens to
be running to snag the Megahealth placed
out in the center. Another feature which
keeps gameplay in different areas tied together
are the long, straight hallways that connect
nearly all of the corner rooms. With nothing
to block line of sight, players in one room
can usually see what is going on in the
next, with obvious results. There's nothing
more amusing of throwing a ridiculous volume
of fire down a hallway and into a group
of brawlers who don't even know you're there
until your cap catches them right in the
neck. I'd also hate to be the sad sack who
is running down a hallway with another player
in pursuit, only to find someone else entering
the hallway from the other direction. (Can
you say "Shit Sandwich?") With
four corner rooms, it doesn't take a Nobel
laureate to figure out where the guns are
gonna be– the PG, RL, and RG all have
their own rooms, while the humble SG shares
space with the RA. The GL sits right above
the elevator in the only non-corner room,
while the YA sits mid-hallway on the opposite
side of the board. The PG and the RL seem
to be the guns to own here– with their
considerable punch and rapid rates of fire,
these weapons are the most aptly suited
to every confrontation you're likely to
find yourself in. Although the author suggests
2-4 players, as many as five is not out
of the question– player lives will
likely be short enough that weapon availability
will not be a problem. Fed by small size
of the map and the paranoia from a layout
that never gives you a safe moment, Grindmill
is a fast, furious, and fabulous fragfest.
(A-)
This is a great map, and one that is quickly
becoming the favorite of my playtesting
team. It's got a great layout, visuals to
match, and unbelievably fast gameplay fueled
by outstandingly good connectivity. Not
one to miss. (A)
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